On Monday 2 March 1964 The Beatles joined Equity, the actors’ union, this was done only minutes before they began shooting their first film, the as-yet untitled A Hard Day’s Night. The Fab Four and the film crew met at Paddington Station, where their train left at 8.30am from platform five bound for Minehead in Somerset. No filming took place at the station, but George Harrison met Pattie Boyd, his future wife.

On 2 March 1952 Ronnie and Reggie Kray were drafted up for National Service, it was fighting authority here they became master-exponents of extreme violence and gangland thuggery

Lady Justice is usually depicted wearing a blindfold, but not the one on top of the Old Bailey, impartiality is shown by her ‘maidenly’ form

One brick on top of Canary Wharf is 10mm higher than the rest deliberately laid so brickie could say he’d laid the highest brick in Europe

Winston Churchill decreed that his coffin should leave London by Waterloo (not the natural station for Oxfordshire) just to annoy de Gaulle

The Prime Minister’s chair is the only one around the Cabinet table that has arms, it’s accompanied by 23 carved, solid Victorian mahogany chairs

Dickens modelled The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters pub in Our Mutual Friend on the Bunch of Grapes in Narrow Street

The first outside broadcast was that of the internment of The Unknown Soldier a Westminster Abbey in 1918

The 1948 London Olympics were the first to use starting blocks. Before that runners pushed off from a hole in the track, dug with a trowel

The old London Routemaster bus could lean further from the vertical without falling over than a human can

The oldest business ratepayer in London is Twinings Tea. Their shop at 216 the Strand has been in continuous use since 1706

Enfield Town has the unusual claim to fame of having hosted the world’s first cash machine in 1967, it was inaugurated by English comedy actor Reg Varney

Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.